Lobs
by Evie of the Nile
Summary: Elizabeth, Rebecca and Louisa find mum and dad's anniversary dinner... R


Disclaimer: these belong to me (betcha didn't see that coming) not mine, stupids. Elizabeth, Rebecca and Louisa belong to Shelby

Rating: G

Summary: Rick and Evleyn's anniversary, the triplets are 2 years old and they find dinner.

Author: Rachel

It was a special day in the O'Connell house, especially for two. It was Rick and Evelyn's anniversary, their 11th to be precise. Given the warm weather (being late August) Rick had planned to share an intimate late dinner with his wife by the water's side. They were living in Connecticut to get away from the war at this time, and they had a lovely beach-front manor. 

Between the house and the waterline was a paddock for their horses that Rick (as surprise) had friends back at home send over by boat, he had this planned as a surprise for Evelyn's last birthday, and he could tell that she loved it because she was really starting to miss her horses.

Right now Rick was bringing the dinner into the kitchen, he had a box of three live lobsters, some muscles and oysters, he had their favourite little restaurant make salad for them and a bottle of ice wine. He juggled everything around until he has all in its place, the box on the floor, salad in the refrigerator along with the muscles and oysters, and the wine on the wine rack.

"Mmmm, smells good." He heard his wife come up behind him, as he pulled out the tray of vegetables and dip his wife rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. 

"Hungry?" He asked, as he took out a knife to delicately chop the radishes into little stars to his wife's amusement. 

"Yes, very, but I was thinking we could eat our orderves upstairs." She said as she played with the hair on the back of Rick's neck. 

"Ah, sounds good Madame." Rick said as he picked up the tray with one hand and took Evelyn's arm in the other, he put on his best French accent as he lead her through the front hall to the staircase. "I assume the petite girls are in there bed, and we have de rest of de night to do vat ever ve vant, non?" He asked as Evie giggled. They walked arm in arm all the way to their room.

~~~~~~ 

Elizabeth opened the door and peered down the hallway just to catch and glimpse of her mother's foot

kicking her bedroom door closed. She turned back toward her sisters, "Mum and dad are payin games

'gain." She informed them, "can't pay wiff dem."

With that they all turned left, down the hallway to the staircase, as opposed to toward their parent's room. The three little girls all got on their bottoms and scooted down the staircase. Once at the bottom they all made their way to the kitchen. "I hungry" Louisa said in a low whine. 

"Mmm, let's eat." Rebecca agreed. Elizabeth started to rummage in the refrigerator, Louisa in the cupboards below the counter, and Rebecca pulled over a chair and checked the counter itself for food.

"Here's apples." Elizabeth said, "We can eat dem-" She was cut off by Louisa's shrill scream. 

Rebecca jumped off the counter and Elizabeth got out of the fridge, to come see what was wrong. "Monsters! Monsters!" Louisa cried as she pointed to the box she was just scrounging inside, the top flaps had been opened and were no longer securely folded together. 

"Let me see!" Elizabeth said sceptically, she went to the box and threw open the flaps, "COME OUT MONSTERS! YOU SCARED MY SISSY!!" She yelled at the contents before actually looking at them. "Hey," She said as she took a closer look, "De's aren't monsters, de's are lobs." She started to giggle, "Hi lobbers, how are you? Louisa tought you were monsters." Rebecca started to giggle too. 

"Go away!" Louisa said angrily at her sisters.

"Look," Elizabeth said as she picked one of the lobsters out of the box, it had the protective tapes on around its claws. "Pretty pets, mummy and daddy boughted us pets! Three, one for each of us!" She screeched! 

"Yeah!" Rebecca chimed in as she picked up the second lobster. Louisa walked over to the box sceptically, reached in slowly, and picked up the third and final lobster "Hi Ralph" She said as she looked it in the eye.

"My Lob's name is Frank." Elizabeth said as she petted its head.

"My lob's a she, her name's Jordan." Rebecca said.

"Dat's a boy name!" Elizabeth countered.

"Nooooo, it a girly name too!" Rebecca said then stuck her tongue out. 

With that Elizabeth gave up. "We need leashes for our lobs." She said, where's some string.

"Oh I know!" Rebecca said.

~~~~~~

They had raided and mud room and taken all of the shoes apart in search for laces, now that they had them securely tied around the lobster's torsos they were dragging their new pets outside in the field. "My lob's a vegemetrian." Rebecca said as she tried to feed the crustacean some grass. 

"Oh yeah, what dat mean?" Elisabeth asked. 

"I tink it means he no eat fuit." Rebecca answered. 

"Moo moo" Louisa said as she dragged her lobster in the long grass. 

"Nooo, dose are cows, lobs don't make noise!" Elizabeth yelled at her. 

"Hmph." Louisa simply said to end the argument. 

~~~~~~

After Rick and Evelyn were finished 'playing', they lay in bed for a couple minutes in silence. Until finally, it was broken; "Rick hun?" 

"Yeeeeees?" He asked.

"Is dinner going to be near as good as the orderves were?" To this her husband chuckled. 

"If you want it to be?" He asked as he rolled onto his front, got up on all fours and started to nuzzle her neck with his nose and sniff at her. 

"Bad boy," She said amused. "You're not supposed to be on the bed, I don't even think you're housebroken!" She sat up and pointed him to the floor. When he didn't listen she started to try and push him down, but with a bound he was on top of her and had her pinned to the mattress. 

Rick started to bark like a dog, Evie squirmed her arms out and tried to push him off to which he started to lick her face. "Eeeeew! Bad dog! Bad bad dog!" She screamed as she laughed hysterically, finally she managed to squirm out from under his person and slide off the bed backwards, she hit the floor with a thump. 

Rick sat up and looked at her puzzled, she got up and grabbed his 'collar' "Get off the bed!" She told him, "Bad dogs off the bed!" 

Rick finally obliged and stepped onto the ground. "Good boy!" She said as she pretended to scratch him behind the ears. 

~~~~~~

The girls had brought their lobsters down to the beach and were now letting them play in the pools left over from the high tide. "Do you tink dey like water?" Elizabeth asked, by now her lobster was submerged and was trying to get under a rock.

"Yeah, dey like water." Louisa answered. "Let's let dem free, I tink dey like to be fwee." She suggested. To this Rebecca nodded. 

"Yeah, dey like dat." She agreed. She bent down, picked up her lobster and started to untie the rope.

~~~~~~

When Evelyn didn't agree to pet her husband's tummy, he got quite upset. Now she screamed as she fled down the stairs, followed by a barking mut. 

"Tummy rub! Tummy rub!" Rick yelled out in a dog mimic.

"Nooo!" she yelled out half stifling a laugh. She cought up to her at the bottom of the stairway and wrapped an arm around her waist. "AAAaaaaaaah!" She yelled out. Rick held her tight and started to sniff in her ear and rub his nose against her cheek and neck, she shied away because it tickled. 

"Will you give me a tummy rum?" He whispered into her ear.

"No" She answered.

"Please?" He asked, once again whispering. 

She shook her head.

"Why not?" He asked, just as calmly.

"Because, I'm the master, you're the dog, you do as *I* say, not the other way around." She explained. 

"Oh, is that right?" He asked as he turned her around to face him, there was a gleam in his eye and Evelyn knew that something was about to happen. Just as she was about to wiggle out of his grasp, he bent over, grabbed her knees and picked her up into the air and started to run to the front door.

~~~~~~

As they were slowely making their way back to the house, the girls spotted their parents comeing out of the side door and coming toward them. Knowing they weren't supposed to be down my the ocean by themselves, the girls ran as fast as they could to the side of the horse paddock and took the other side of the fence hidden behind brush up to the house. 

They got into the house unseen, they were in bare feet, therefore left trails, but were oblivious to it… Their bed sheets couldn't say the same.

Rick carried his wife all the way to the sea side, when he got to the sand he put her down, as soon as her feet touched the ground she spun around and took him in an embrace that lasted for a while and ended on the ground. 

As they rolled across the sand Rick put his hand in his wife's hair, and pulled out a dirty old shoelace. "Um," He broke the kiss, "Isn't this mine?" He asked as he held up the now, useless, lace. 

Evelyn didn't care, though, she took the string and through it away, grabbed him and pulled him back down. She reached her arm out and felt something scaly, her eyes opened wide but she couldn't voice anything because of her husband being in the way of her mouth. "Mmmmmm! Mmmmmm!" She squirmed around and got out from under his grasp and she propped herself up on her elbows and looked to see what she touched. 

In amazement, what her hand had come in contact with was a lobster, a good sized lobster too! The thing that was most peculiar was the fact that there were two elastics on its claws. Rick crawled up behind her and asked what she was looking at. "Were we having lobster for dinner?" She asked.

"Uh, yes, why?" Rick answered confused. 

"There they go." She responded, as she caught site of two more already in the water.

"Oh ____!" Rick cursed to his wife's amusement as he got up and started to chase the crustaceans, which in turn, drove them into the sea, never to be seen again. Rick turned back to his wife in frustration, to catch her laughing at his act. "Oh well," He said, "your loss." 

He started to walk up toward the house, to which his wife caught up and walked with him. "Oh well, I'm sure you have plenty more in store for dinner." She said as she wrapped her arms over the back of his shoulders. 

"But of course, madame!" He started to speak in French again.

~~~~~~ 

"Issa" Elizabeth whispered to Louisa, who was closest. 

"Yeah?" She answered.

"I'm itchy." She said as she scratched her legs. Louisa sat up in bed and flicked on the bedside lamp.

"Why?" She asked, to this Elizabeth lifted her covers to find sand in the bed. 

"Ooops" She said as her other two sisters lifted their covers to find the same particles covering their sheets and mattresses.

Meanwhile their parents had found the trails leading upstairs. Evelyn followed the footprints across the tiled floors with a cloth and managed to get ride of most of the brown mud. Rick had left to go prepare what they had left for dinner. When she got to their room she heard Elizabeth's last remark, and opened the door.

"What is it? What did you do?" She asked, as the scene of the sandy children suddenly struck her. "Oh dear lord." She said, stifling the laughter. "This, this isn't good, you're father's going to flip." She said as she walked over with a big smirk. 

She knew they should be punished for going down to the ocean without a parent. But right now evenly just wanted to celebrate their anniversary, so she just left it to a brief lecture. "Did you three go down to the water?" She asked. To which all but Elizabeth nodded. "Did you take the lobsters down?" She asked, to this no one nodded.

"No mum, we take lobs down." Rebecca answered for them. "Dey are pets, tank you" She smiled. Evelyn couldn't help but laugh. 

"No honey, those were our…" She thought twice about telling her daughters what she and her husband had in mind for the lobsters. "…never mind, OK, come on." She got up and lifter Elizabeth out of bed and set her down on the floor, let's get all you cleaned up." The four females went into the bath room, the triplets stripped off their clothes, then got into the warm bath. 

Evelyn came down after she got the girls back in bed and talked to them about not telling daddy how she had let them off so easily. By then Rick had prepared the rest of dinner. 

"Well?" He asked, "How bad is it?" She didn't respond, only ignored him while humming. She looked up to find him glaring at her. With a large smirk on her face she responded.

"I'm not telling you." Rick started to smile. 

"Grrrrrrr." He started to growl like a dog. To which his wife backed away into the parlour. 

Elizabeth poked her head out the door for the second time that night, to find her mother's foot kicking their bedroom door shut. "Dere payin' 'gain." She turned around and informed her sister. "Lets go pay wiff horsies and lobs!"


End file.
